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Ango fire, 29 January 2020 Ango

Out · last detection 4 Feb 2020, 11:17 UTC

The fire started on 29 January 2020 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,271 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 37 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
11,271ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
29 Jan 2020 – 4 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
29 Jan
2020
Heat detections
393
in a single hotspot: 144 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Feb 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jan4 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

39°high
46km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 18 Feb.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,340 ha in 2016, 1,975 ha in 2017, 1,427 ha in 2018, 2,113 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,097 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ango where it started
    11,350 ha reached on 28 Jan
    0.3 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
28 Jan 37.4 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Jan 36.5 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Jan 36.8 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Jan 34.5 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Feb 33.4 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Feb 35.8 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Feb 37.4 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Feb 36.8 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Feb after 33.6 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
6 Feb after 34.5 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Feb after 37.2 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Feb after 39.0 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Feb after 38.0 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Feb after 36.8 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Feb after 36.5 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Feb after 35.3 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Feb after 36.2 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Feb after 37.4 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Feb after 37.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Feb after 38.1 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Feb after 37.5 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Feb after 34.8 °C 31 % 28 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 22 Jan 2020
After · 11 Feb 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 393Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ango fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 January 2020 and 4 February 2020: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,271 hectares (112.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ango (11,350 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Congo - Kinshasa (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.